The problem of liberating a dual wheeled vehicle from a mired situation in snow, slush, sand, land fills and like materials has long been a vexatious and costly one for the owners and operators of those vehicles.
Several solutions have been proposed throughout the years and have met with varying degrees of success. Many prior art solutions secured traction plates to the distressed wheel by means which extended inwardly between the two tires. For example, Riesen, (U.S. Pat. No. 2,312,486) teaches a traction plate which is secured to a bridge plate that spans the two wheels so that the traction plate is secured against the outer periphery of the tires. Another, Pletch, (U.S. Pat. No. 2,454,005), teaches the attachment of a traction plate to the dual wheels by means of a tension plate having a shaft-mounted cam arranged therewith so that as the shaft is rotated, the traction plate is moved relative to the outer peripheries of the tires. Silver (U.S. Pat. No. 2,557,241) teaches a traction plate which extends across the outer periphery of the two tires and is bolted to a strap that engages the rims of the dual wheel.
Other prior art devices are described in Sprung (U.S. Pat. No. 986,099), Fogarty (U.S. Pat. No. 1,606,622), McCord (U.S. Pat. No. 3,532,149), Sams (U.S. Pat. No. 3,630,440), Greipel (U.S. Pat. No. 3,672,422), and McCord (U.S. Pat. No. 3,750,734).
While each of the foregoing employed some variant of enhancing of traction between the mired wheel and the natural surface upon which it is stuck or an improvised surface deliberately interposed between the dual wheel and the slippery natural surface, the results obtained were not always predictable or useful, the mass of equipment necessary to effectuate the desired result was not readily transportable, and the contortions required for installation were not practicable.